


diplomatic cables

by allp_wips



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-07-19 07:00:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,276
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19969924
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/allp_wips/pseuds/allp_wips
Summary: The great thing about finding out that you're soulmates with your enemy, and that everything you write on your hand appears on theirs, is that it can be used for some very practical purposes.





	diplomatic cables

The great thing about finding out that you're soulmates with your enemy, and that everything you write on your hand appears on theirs, is that it can be used for some very practical purposes.

\---

_This isn't about us,_ Alex writes on her hand, the night after she discovers her and Astra are soulmates. _I'm writing only to see if we can come to some kind of agreement to stop this war between our sides._

Love had never served her well until now, anyway, and she isn't about to pursue it with an intergalactic terrorist, soulmates or not. But the bond between her and Astra is useful, if only she can get Astra to see it that way.

Still, she doesn't seriously expect Astra to write back. It's a possibilty that she has to exhaust, but that doesn't mean Astra has to respond in kind.

Which is why Alex is surprised when she wakes up the next morning to find words, not on her arm or anywhere obvious, but nested in the wrinkled skin between her index finger and thumb. _I'm listening._

\---

That's how they start to communicate, through words scribbled in discreet patches of skin on their bodies. At first, Astra doesn't listen to Alex's entreaties to stop her plan, seeming hellbent to continue installing Myriad around National City and then the world.

But, she doesn't stop writing back, either, and that's why Alex also doesn't stop. If Astra truly doesn't want to listen to her entreaties for surrender, she wouldn't be writing back. Some part of her must want this to end, just as much as Alex does. 

That's what Alex hopes, at least, for more reasons than she's willing to admit even to herself.

\---

_Clear out the park in the westernmost end of the city before sunset,_ Astra writes on the side of her pinky finger one afternoon, and Alex has maybe three hours to coordinate an evacuation of the most popular park in National City, and to get DEO agents settled across the area, before a rogue Fort Rozz inmate storms the area.

_Do not presume this is a truce,_ Alex reads on the crook of her elbow that night. _Vilinios was insubordinate. Letting you take him was advantageous to my plans._

Alex frowns, and almost doesn't write back. Finally she settles on a _General Lane is in town again. Stay away from him._ scribbled in small cursive on her thigh.

\---

When Maxwell Lord gets Supergirl drugged on Red Kryptonite, Alex thinks she might go mad with worry. Kara gets worse by the day, often rampaging around the city, and even J'onn can't stop her without risking exposure himself.

Then, one night, intricate molecular drawings appear on her arms and thighs, soon accompanied by tidy notes detailing what they are: the chemical composition of red kryptonite, and the theorized chemical composition of the antitode to it.

Alex photographs the notes before they're erased from her skin, and spends a sleepless night in the labs, manufacturing the antidote as per the steps that Astra's clear notes lay out. Only when she's administered it to Kara, and stabilized her sister, does she breathe easy.

She doesn't write a _Thank you_ to Astra, but it doesn't escape her how big a risk Astra took by scribbling that all over her body. So, Alex scribbes a _You could have been found_. instead, into the space between her index and middle finger.

_It was worth it,_ comes an almost instantaneous reply.

\---

_This isn't simply about you,_ Astra writes, the time when she sneaks Alex out after Alex had been careless enough to get caught by one of Non's underlings on a recon mission into Fort Rozz.

_You are essential to your side, as I am to mine. That is part of why I saved you._

Alex smiles. She knows she's a good soldier, maybe one of the best J'onn's ever had. That doesn't mean she's irreplaceable. That doesn't mean that Astra had been required to stick her neck out, and jeopardize her own plan, to save her.

_But it's not all of it,_ she writes back.

A pause. Then-

_No._

\---

_Maxwell Lord has received a shipment of kryptonite bombs from General Lane for research purposes_ , Astra writes around her shoulder one evening, and Alex spends a eventful night shift raiding Lord Technologies, finding exactly the cache that Astra had described.

It isn't until she's in her apartment the next day, having been forced by J'onn to go home and rest, that it occurs to her that such intel hadn't been part of the agreement that her and Astra had come to. If Astra had known where Maxwell's cache was, she could have gone and gotten the weapons for herself, instead of practically gifting them to the DEO.

That night Alex writes _Thank you_ on her palm in a fit of madness, and then frantically erases it seconds later, hoping Astra hadn't seen it before it disappeared.

The morning, when she wakes up, _It's too early to thank me yet._ is written on the same spot on her palm.

\---

The night the DEO agents raid every Myriad box installed all over the world, taking down the entire network in one stealth operation, Alex knows that the more than year-long communication between her and Astra is finished. Until then, it's almost been like a game, both of them trying to communicate with each other without anyone else on either of their sides finding out. Their secret notes are like an adventure, the one bright spot in the otherwise dreary work of stopping a war.

But, as oddly thrilling as it has turned out to be, she never expected it to last. The Fort Rozz inmates will find out soon enough that there is a traitor amongst their midst, because no one else could have delivered the knowledge of the location of every single Myriad outpost so neatly to the DEO.

When she gets out the briefing room after the mission's closure, Alex ducks into an empty cubicle and write a single sentence to Astra to let her know that the DEO has completed its raid. _It's over._

Astra's reply comes back, somehow inflecting new meaning to the same words. _Yes, it's over._

\---

Alex offers to sneak Astra out of Fort Rozz, before her underlings put two and two together and realize that the cause of their failure is her. Astra's crimes can't be forgiven, not entirely. But, Alex knows that she has a very good chance of arguing for a more lenient sentence, at least, given all her co-peration.

Astra refuses. In hindsight, Alex realizes that she should have expected that. Astra hadn't betrayed her cause to save her own skin; she'd betrayed it because she truly didn't believe it was effective, any more. 

_I'm going to gather them all, and tell them what I've done,_ Astra writes, on Alex's hand, and Alex knows that it might as well a suicide note. The inmates of Fort Rozz, Non least of all, would never let her get out of there without a fight, once she reveals that to them. For Astra to make it out past all of them would be a miracle. And yet, somehow, it makes sense that Astra would see that as the only way out for someone like her.

Alex doesn't bother offering help again, or dissuading Astra from the plan. She simply undoes the first few buttons of her shirt, picks up her pen again, poised exactly over her heart, and writes what are probably the last words of hers that Astra will read. _I think I could have loved you, if we'd gotten a chance._

\---


End file.
